‘It’s okay,’ I said again, but – just as I was getting ready to put the first of the blankets over her – something fell away inside of me. I hadn’t noticed it as I’d carried her here, but I could see it now: a sharp, compact branch embedded in her gut.

Shit.

Shit.

I glanced down the slope to the road.

‘Go,’ she gasped.

I looked at her again.

‘Go,’ she repeated, more forcefully this time, her hand on my arm. ‘Go and get us help.’ As she spoke, the wound bled, bubbles forming around the branch, her top already soaked. Her breath crackled and wheezed, and I started to realize she had a cracked rib, maybe a broken pelvis too. I looked from her to the road, then back to her. I didn’t know what to do. How could I leave her here like this? But how could I not?

‘David.’

I met her gaze again.

‘You need to go.’

A tremble rippled through my throat.

This time, I nodded, yanking my backpack towards me, emptying my food out on to the ground next to her. I left my water bottles there as well, three of them in a line.

‘You need to drink and eat,’ I said.

‘Okay.’

‘I mean it, Jo.’

‘I know.’ She forced a smile. ‘Take the phone.’

I fumbled around in her coat pocket for the Nokia, thinking that a signal might save us, and when I got it out, I discovered that we finally had something: a single bar, flickering in and out. I held it up to the sky, hoping it would hold, but then it dropped out altogether. Placing it in her hand, I said, ‘You keep the phone. I’ll be back, okay?’

She nodded.

‘Stay strong for me, okay?’

A hint of a smile. ‘Okay.’

I pulled the blankets up over her, held her eyes for a moment – her fear written across them like words – and then I headed down the slope, trying to move as rapidly as I could. I kept going, and going, using my arms to sling me between trees, my head down, watching every step I took, every movement, my entire focus on getting help.

Four hundred feet from the road, I finally saw something.

There was a car coming.

Family

2018

The Forest | Now